In the coming months, Bond threads will be popping up left and right. Let's just blow our wad now. Hell, let's throw in the worst too. Feel free to make up your own categories.

Best overall film: Goldfinger
Easy one. It pretty much invented what eventually became every cliche Bond is known for. It's a blueprint. It also has the single best villain line.

Best villain line: Goldfinger
"No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die." Doesn't work as well out of context. But you know it anyway.

Best henchman: Oddjob, Goldfinger
I sense a theme. This movie just rules, I guess.

Best score: John Barry...pick one.
It's hard to choose one of them, but the John Barry sound is part of what shaped the 007 series. Honorable mention goes to Marvin Hamlisch's electrofunk score for The Spy Who Loved Me. It gives the film a sound that's unique in the series.

Best Bond Girl: Barbara Bach, The Spy Who Loved Me
One of the few women to ever match 007 move for move, and probably the only one to completely turn the tables on him, use him mercilessly, and gain the upper hand. Also looks smashing in a black evening gown.

Best theme song: Paul McCartney & Wings, Live and Let Die
It may not have suited the credits sequence, but it's a great Bond theme.

Worst pun: "He had a lot of guts", On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Richard Maibaum should have been taken out back and pie-faced for that one.

over all, The Spy Who Loved Me has always been my favorite Bond film. it's just great in every sense...everything a Bond movie should be.

i think the worst Bond movie is License To Kill. In fact, i really dislike any Bond film with Timothy Dalton. He was just so badly miscast that it felt like Bond-ish films rather than Bond films. Though Die Another Day is at the top of the list too.

My favorite Bond opening credit sequence is A View To A Kill. Granted, the Day Glow girls are mostly cheese, but the very first few beats from the song and we see a girl unzipping her parka, revealing a neon 007 as her boobs spread apart...GENIUS!

i think my favorite Bond Girl is Holly Goodhead from Moonraker. For that matter, the worst Bond Girl...and i challenge anyone to try and debate this...is Grace Jones as May Day in A View To A Kill.

I know I'm in the minority, but Roger Moore was my favorite Bond growing up. Probably because he was the Bond in the movies i saw first. But i think Pierce Brosnan was a great Bond...though all the movies he was in sucked.

over all, The Spy Who Loved Me has always been my favorite Bond film. it's just great in every sense...everything a Bond movie should be.

i think the worst Bond movie is License To Kill. In fact, i really dislike any Bond film with Timothy Dalton. He was just so badly miscast that it felt like Bond-ish films rather than Bond films. Though Die Another Day is at the top of the list too.

My favorite Bond opening credit sequence is A View To A Kill. Granted, the Day Glow girls are mostly cheese, but the very first few beats from the song and we see a girl unzipping her parka, revealing a neon 007 as her boobs spread apart...GENIUS!

i think my favorite Bond Girl is Holly Goodhead from Moonraker. For that matter, the worst Bond Girl...and i challenge anyone to try and debate this...is Grace Jones as May Day in A View To A Kill.

I know I'm in the minority, but Roger Moore was my favorite Bond growing up. Probably because he was the Bond in the movies i saw first. But i think Pierce Brosnan was a great Bond...though all the movies he was in sucked.

Agree, agree, agree. I loved Roger Moore also, I grew up with him. Dalton was bad, and your also right about Grace Jones.

I can't think of a favorite Bond girl. I enjoyed many though.

I guess Brosnan is my favorite Bond overall, even though I agree the films he got to be in weren't that great. I also like Connery though, he's the great classic Bond and Brosnan is the great new classic Bond. I'll always have that soft spot for Roger Moore though.

I wish Daniel Craig the best of luck though, I think he could be very solid as Bond, not the best ever, but solid. His work in Road to Predition, Layer Cake, and Munich show that he has range and that he could pull off some Bond.

I really liked Diamonds are Forever, and i though Goldeneye was a really, really good film, the only of Brosnan's films that i really liked even though i think he is a fabulous Bond, second only to Connery.

My least favourite would be the Dalton bonds, he really seemed to talk Bond seriously and approach it as a proper acting assignment and not just a bit of fun.

Agreed the Barbara Bach was the bestest Bond girl, but my vote for the Uber-Fox in the Bond universe goes to Famke for her riveting potrayl as Xenia Onnatop ( i dont care enough to make sure this is the correct spelling. You know who i mean)

I can't believe my eyes! How dare you insult my beloved Grace Jones! You are obviously a girly-man who cannot handle a strong, vicious woman. Sir, I challenge you to a duel! Pistols at dawn I say! We shall each walk ten paces, and then a midget with a boom-box will play a recording of Grace Jones' timeless ode to doggy-style sex: "Pull Up to the Bumper"- and we shall have a disco dance-off the likes of which God himself has never seen!

Pull up to my bumper baby,
In your long black limosine,
Pull up to my bumper baby,
And drive it in between.
Pull up, to it, don't drive, through it,
Back it, up twice, now that, fit's nice.

Best Bond film: From Russia with Love, the other films seem to enjoy the campy elements but this is the only mature Bond film (except Living Daylights)where the campy elements aren't there and it has a brutal fight at the end between Connery and Robert Shaw.

Best Henchman: Fatima Blush (Barbara Carrera), yeah, the movie sucked but she was still a memorable henchwoman.

Best theme song: A View to a Kill. Totally badass (I'll just forget that it's by Duran Duran). Second place to Love and Let Die, and I also love The Living Daylights.

Worst pun: All the worst puns are in Die Another Day. The scene where Bond meets Jinx made me want to puke. "Ornithologist, huh? Wow. Now there's a mouthful." To whoever wrote that gem: Fuck you and die.

Worst overall film: A tough one, but I'll say A View to a Kill. After the super cool opening it's just nothing but crap. Close behind are Diamonds are Forever, Live and Let Die, License to Kill, and Tomorrow Never Dies.

Worst guest character: Sheriff J.W. Pepper in Live and Let Die, and, unforgiveably, brought back in The Man With the Golden Gun. Clearly a cheap cash-in on the popularity of Smokey and the Bandit, and an annoying one at that. It wasn't so bad in the first one, as he wasn't fucking up a good movie. But The Man With the Golden Gun might have gone down as Moore's best entry if not for that tobacco-spittin' bastard.

Worst guest character: Sheriff J.W. Pepper in Live and Let Die, and, unforgiveably, brought back in The Man With the Golden Gun. Clearly a cheap cash-in on the popularity of Smokey and the Bandit, and an annoying one at that.

Actually Smokey and the Bandit came out 3 years after Man with the Golden Gun, so I don't think that counts as a cash-in unless they could see the future. Trendsetter perhaps?

I have no problem with the early Moore films. Moonraker goes off the rails and he never really recovered. For Your Eyes Only was a step in the right direction, but damn its so long, and then along came Octopussy and that was that. And Moore was never close to being the Bond Connery was.

Robert Carlyle's Victor Zokas in The World is Not Enough had the potential to be a classic Bond villain -- a guy who can't feel pain? Brilliant. But then they botched the execution and didn't really give him much to do.

The best theme song is hands down Tom Jones' Thunderball. That horn kicks in at the beginning and you know you're in a Bond movie.

I've never understood the love for Goldeneye, as I consider it the worst of the Bronsan era. Yeah, I know what that sounds like. I did like Tomorrow Never Dies (could have been better if the villian was more fleshed out).

Die Another Day started well, had a cruddy theme song but a brilliant credit sequence and then went to all hell. The less said about invisible cars, the better.

Dalton may be reviled, but I really like the Living Daylights. Aside from Joe Don Baker and a poor man's Dolph Lundgren, its a very good Bond film.

* Sorry, I love Roger Moore and all, and he was the Bond I grew up with, but in retrospect, his interpretation of 007 as a featherweight dandy turned what was conceived as a tough-as-nails, manly secret agent with a licence to kill into a cartoony, limp-wristed jetsetter with a licence to smirk.

"Best Bond Film" is hard for me. I think you almost have to say Goldfinger because in my mind, if I had to pick the one film that summed up and encapsulated everything good about the series, it would be "Goldfinger". It's got Connery, the original man, and it balances nicely the more serious, spy thriller qualities of some of the films with the more superhero, outlandish elements of some of the other films. "Goldfinger" is the perfect balance.

"Best Bond" has to be Sean Connery, but I think it's almost by default. He created our perceptions of the screen character, and every actor inhabiting the role subsequently has at least in some way, tried to emulate Connery. The attitude, the charm, the wit, the movie Bond is different from literary Bond, and Connery created all of it.

"Second Best Bond Actor"? Timothy Dalton, easily. Some of you guys are crazy. He's hard-edged, serious, dangerous, and gave maybe the best acting performances of the series, yes, including Sean Connery's.

"Best Song"? I'm going to break the mold a bit here and cheat. The Bond title songs are usually bad, let's face it. They may have a cheesy charm (I loved A-Ha and "The Living Daylights"), but they are not great music. I absolutely hated Tom Jones's "Thunderball", and I hated it even more when I heard the best Bond song never used. That's right, Johnny Cash's version of "Thunderball". Man, it is so cool, it's basically the story of Bond and what not in that Johnny Cash storyteller vein, it's catchy, and it actually makes some sense, which a lot of the title songs never have. It's a nice treat if you can find it for download.

"Most Underrated Bond Film" has to be On Her Majesty's Secret Service. We had a nice thread on it in Franchises, and it's just a great film. Minus Lazenby, add Connery, it might even be the greatest.

BEST BOND FILM: 'For Your Eyes Only'. Being born in the 70's, I grew up with Roger Moore as Bond. This was the most serious, least cheesy, and hardest edged of the Moore Bonds. It's the only one that never insults the intelligence of the characters or the audience. RUNNERS UP (In order, for me): 'From Russia With Love', 'Goldfinger', 'The Spy Who Loved Me', and 'Thunderball'.

BEST BOND GIRL: Carole Bouquet as Melina Havelock in 'For Your Eyes Only'. Absolutely the best looking Bond girl, and she has a crossbow. She's involved in good action sequences with Moore as Bond, and is a part of the story, rather than an accessory.

BEST BOND MOMENT: Kicking the car over the cliff in 'For Your Eyes Only'. Mean spirited, vengeful, not out of character for Bond, but pushing it for Moore's interpretation. It was a gutsy move, and it drew cheers in the theater when I saw it.

BEST ACTION SEQUENCE: Climbing the mountain to the bad guy's base in 'For Your Eyes Only'. Suspenseful, looks realistic, and almost devoid of sound. Not a typically overdone action sequence. Well shot and acted, and adds to the overall believability of the entire movie.

WORST BOND GIRL: Tanya Roberts as Stacey Sutton in 'A View to a Kill'. End of discussion.

Most underrated Bond girl: May Day - Grace Jones (That's right fuckers!)

The best Bond is Sean Connery, the worst is Neal Connery. OK he didn't actually play Bond as such, only "the brother of our best agent"- and was inexplicably called "Connery" in the awful film "OPERATION DOUBLE 007".

Dalton was terrific. Unfortunately, by the time he came around the idea of a 'License to Kill' was sort of redundant, and John McTiernan's films really raised the bar for action films, demanding a high body count from Bond to satisfy audiences.

He also has my favourite Bond line reading, all time:
"Whoever she was, I must have scared the living daylights out of her."

BEST BAD-GUY WEAPON:
Either Oddjob's bowler or the nifty buzzsaw yo-yo from Octopussy

BEST VILLAINOUS LINE:
"Look after Mr. Bond. See that some harm comes to him." - Moonraker

BOND FILM WITH THE MOST GRISLY DEATHS:License to Kill, without question. Heart cut out, decompression chamber, partially gnawed by sharks, burned alive and the rockcrushing death of a future Oscar winner.

BEST BOND VILLAIN THAT'S NOT ACTUALLY IN A BOND FILM:
Hans Gruber - Die Hard
Rene Belloq - Raiders of the Lost Ark
Conal Cochran - Halloween 3: Season of the Witch (Go back and watch it. The second half of that film is pure Bond with some horror/sci-fi decoration.)

There are more Moore supporters around here than I would have suspected. I think every actor has brought his own valid interpretation to the character. Honestly, I can see why someone raised on Connery would have disliked Moore's very different take, but I'd rather see an actor do something different than simply imitate the last guy for continuity's sake. And I think it's a shame that Dalton didn't get more of a chance to own the role, as he had an interesting take on it.

I would think so. I certainly did. And throughout my youth, Moore was my idea of who Bond was. It wasn't until much later (after the home VCR became widespread, and movies became available for rental) that I even got to see the Connery movies in their entirety. So like a lot of people here, I'll always have that soft spot for the Moore entries. It's just a little hard as an adult to deny that he doesn't have a very good ratio of good films to bad ones. I watched Live and Let Die this month for the first time in over twenty years. I remember really liking it as a kid, and I was really disappointed to see its true form. Fortunately, the next two held up. Now I'm up to Moonraker. Ew.

I grew up watching the Moore films, and enjoyed them for the most part. And for some reason, as a kid, I avoided the Connery films. It wasn't until THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS that I realized there was much more to Bond than what Moore brought to the role. And thanks to my enjoyment of Dalton's darker take on 007, I went back and enjoyed most of the Connery films. I guess that's when I grew out of the Moore silliness and never looked back -- although I still love FOR YOUR EYES ONLY quite a bit.

ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE is an acquired taste but once you get into it, I think it's truly one of the best. Great action, wicked score and an actual emotionally-engaging relationship at its core. If Connery (or Dalton, for that matter) had played Bond in this one instead of Lazenby, this would probably be my #1 favorite Bond film.

My least favorite's gotta be Moonraker, though A View To A Kill, Licence To Kill, and Live And Let Die are all down at the bottom...Bond stories that center on America never feel right to me...

I agree. The worst offender in this category is Diamonds Are Forever, which was designed to take advantage of tax subsidies, and winds up lavishing much of its running time the excitement and exotic glamour of... early-'70s Vegas.

In fact, DAF is my candidate for worst overall. It's like a Bond TV pilot. Nothing like watching a fat, gray Connery in a pink tie and Sansabelt slacks lazily chasing thugs around the Golden Nugget. The only good creative decision they made was not to use their original plotline about Goldfinger's diamond-smuggling twin brother.

Dalton was terrific. Unfortunately, by the time he came around the idea of a 'License to Kill' was sort of redundant, and John McTiernan's films really raised the bar for action films, demanding a high body count from Bond to satisfy audiences.

He also has my favourite Bond line reading, all time:
"Whoever she was, I must have scared the living daylights out of her."

I personally think that Timothy Dalton would have grown into a fantastic Bond, but 'License to Kill' stopped him cold. I think that 'The Living Daylights' is a superior Bond film with good action sequences, a cool car, and some decent bad guys (with the exception of Joe Don Baker). It was an entertaining Bond film and I think that it holds up.

'License to Kill' was killed by its bad acting, in my opinion. The two Bond girls (Cary Lowell and Talisa Soto) put in some of the WORST performances in any movie, much less a Bond film. They're just as bad as Tanya Roberts was in 'A View to a Kill.' When the acting is that bad, it's distracting. Wayne Newton??? It added to the clown factor. Even Benicio Del Toro is bad in it, hamming it up in all of his scenes. Robert Davi is solid, as is Dalton and the regulars who show up, but the rest just suck. The look of the film is wrong too, as it appears too bright and overlit. It looks cheap, especially after coming on the heels of 'The Living Daylights', which had a larger scale and seemed to have better production values.

'License to Kill' isn't a total loss, as some of the action sequences are well done. Most notably, the tanker chase at the end is an excellent setpiece, and kills some of the bad taste of the preceding movie. What absolutely KILLS the movie is that wink in the whale statue at the end.

Dalton played Bond as a dark hero. It's too bad that his final movie wasn't dark as it should have been, given the plot. With the right Bond script, Dalton would have rocked, and I do believe that he could have been the BEST Bond. It's a missed opportunity for the franchise.

I personally think that Timothy Dalton would have grown into a fantastic Bond, but 'License to Kill' stopped him cold. I think that 'The Living Daylights' is a superior Bond film with good action sequences, a cool car, and some decent bad guys (with the exception of Joe Don Baker). It was an entertaining Bond film and I think that it holds up.

'License to Kill' was killed by its bad acting, in my opinion. The two Bond girls (Cary Lowell and Talisa Soto) put in some of the WORST performances in any movie, much less a Bond film. They're just as bad as Tanya Roberts was in 'A View to a Kill.' When the acting is that bad, it's distracting. Wayne Newton??? It added to the clown factor. Even Benicio Del Toro is bad in it, hamming it up in all of his scenes. Robert Davi is solid, as is Dalton and the regulars who show up, but the rest just suck. The look of the film is wrong too, as it appears too bright and overlit. It looks cheap, especially after coming on the heels of 'The Living Daylights', which had a larger scale and seemed to have better production values.

'License to Kill' isn't a total loss, as some of the action sequences are well done. Most notably, the tanker chase at the end is an excellent setpiece, and kills some of the bad taste of the preceding movie. What absolutely KILLS the movie is that wink in the whale statue at the end.

Dalton played Bond as a dark hero. It's too bad that his final movie wasn't dark as it should have been, given the plot. With the right Bond script, Dalton would have rocked, and I do believe that he could have been the BEST Bond. It's a missed opportunity for the franchise.

Those are my thoughts, anyway.

Wow, I agree completely. I loved Living Daylights, but felt really let down by License to Kill. It looks cheap, the locations are boring, the ninjas are out of place, and like Die Another Day the film does nothing with Bond's outlaw status. And Gladys Knight??? Please.

See, I thought the opposite. The action sequences were exactly what sunk License to Kill for me. A big rig doing wheelies and turning on its side are not my idea of great action. Those are stunts that belong on The Dukes of Hazzard, not a Bond movie.

See, I thought the opposite. The action sequences were exactly what sunk License to Kill for me. A big rig doing wheelies and turning on its side are not my idea of great action. Those are stunts that belong on The Dukes of Hazzard, not a Bond movie.

Um, but Bond films are full of goofy vehicle stunts. Too many to list really. I always thought they were part of the charm. Are you saying you didn't like the Aston Martin driving on the frozen lake inside the shed in Living Daylights either?

As much as I dearly love the work of the late Michael Kamen, I feel that it was his score for LICENCE TO KILL that was the film's second weakest link. It felt like James Bond was guest starring in a LETHAL WEAPON movie. The songs in the film are fairly uninspired as well.

For me, the film's weakest moment was Felix Leiter's final scene. His wife was murdered, he was fed to the sharks, he's missing a leg...and yet, he's all smiles when talking to Bond on the phone, as if nothing happened. Much like Navin Johnson's grieving butler Hobart in THE JERK.

Otherwise, I think it's a more-than-solid entry in the Bondography. I have to disagree with Judas' assessment of the Bond girls in this film. I especially enjoyed Carey Lowell. Or was that my penis doing the thinking? Hard to say.

But LICENCE TO KILL pales compared to THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS. I absolutely love that film for every single reason I love the Bond films. For me, DAYLIGHTS is a definitive 007 film, second only to GOLDFINGER in that regard.

I've seen just about all the Bond films, here's my five best and five worst:

1)From Russia With Love (The only Bond movie that I would definitely consider a "great" movie on its own terms, outside of the Bond genre).
2)Goldfinger
3)On Her Majesty's Secret Service
4)GoldenEye
5)You Only Live Twice (mostly for Pleasence's riveting Blofeld)

*also-rans: The Living Daylights and For Your Eyes Only (the only Moore movie that was worth a damn, IMHO....Spy Who Loved Me is barely passable).

Worst:

1)Diamonds are Forever...oh...my....God.
2)Moonraker....sweet jesus....
3)Die Another Day....*vomit*...
4)A View to a Kill
5)Licence to Kill

What do you guys think of bringing Jaws back into future installments?

I wouldn't want anyone but Richard Kiel playing him, and given his age, I'm not sure I'd want to see him return to the role. But it was a lot of fun seeing Jaws return in EVERYTHING OR NOTHING from EA. Even more surprising was how well the legacy of Max Zoran from the lousy A VIEW TO A KILL was worked into the storyline, resulting in one of Bond's better quips in recent memory: "We played bridge once. He lost."

But if you were going to recast Jaws, who would you give the role to? And please don't say, "Bruce the shark."

Regarding Daylights, I always liked the blond "Cello" girl. I believe she posed for Playboy around the time of the movie's release.

What do you guys think of bringing Jaws back into future installments?

My first reaction was that Richard Kiel is dead, and that would be sacrilege. Then I realized that we're talking about a series in which five actors have played the hero, and his greatest nemesis was played by three actors in three movies. So I guess sacrilege doesn't enter into it.

edit: Nevermind, he's not dead. I must have been thinking of Ted Cassidy.